Will Backed Up Programs Work on Restore?

I've heard that only an image will work just as the original did when restored, and that simply backing up a program will not necessarily mean that it will work on being restored. Is this true and if not how can it be made so? I'm running Win98SE on oldish hardware, 1Ghz Duron and 594mb SD100 RAM.

You will find that even if you backup programmes, they will still need to be re-installed using the cds. This is because the registry entries for those programmes need to be re-written. You can backup your registry (the existing one) but i think reinstallation of some of your programmes will still be required.

Thanks Crosstrainer, I thought that was the case but I can't ever remember seeing it written anywhere, I suppose we're supposed to know before we plunge in to computing.

The last time I re-loaded my system I simply took note of the origins of all the programs and wrote them down. It was such a pain re-loading them all I hoped that recording them this time would save the hassle.